Misfits party

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This recent talk is making me want to try a run myself. I'm thinking of a party of real oddball misfits, but not sure how well it will work for both vanilla and HoF. Then again, maybe the challenge would be good. I'm really undecided about one aspect.

Here's what I want to try for sure.
a deep gnome monk.
I never got around trying it, but it was suggested for a decoy. Now's as good a time as any.

A female Drow Paladin
I've always thought this was funny ever since reading Metroanime/Gregg Sharp/Greyalle Shard/Kestral's "Fourth Labor: A soldier's Duty" around 12 years ago.

A halfling bard. I've thought it was funny since I saw Olive Ruskettle in the game Curse of the Azure Bonds 25 years ago.

A dwarven druid. I'm tempted to make him a duergar to round it out, but I like to keep away from ECL races for spellcasters unless everyone is an ECL.
Advice on which subrace of dwarf.

Thus, I have a gnome, an elf, a halfing, and a dwarf. I figure the next two should be one each of human and half-orc, or maybe a half-elf instead of human given that I almost never use those in 3E games. I know how it should go, but should I keep the irony going and reverse the races?

This would be the powergaming perspective
A half-orc Stormlord of Talos
A human wizard or sorcerer.

The penalties for INT and CHA for the half-orc will hurt if I made him the arcane caster, but would it be playable enough for the irony factor to make him a magic-user? The challenge might make it worthwhile.

 

Just these four together would be a fun party. See how well you can do with no Cleric or Wizard!

For the Drow Paladin, I'd suggest Ilmater, so she can nab a level or four of Cleric somewhere down the line. Paladin 3 / Cleric x would probably be optimal while still being very Paladin-like, but I dunno if you want optimal.

For the Halfling Bard, I'd suggest the one that grants a bonus feat, so you can start with Lingering Song. Also I'd suggest one level of Rogue and a decent Int bonus. Actually I'd suggest starting out as a Rogue 1 and then advancing as a Bard, so you can pick all the locks in Targos.

For the Dwarf, eh, it's not like you need either Dex or Cha. Either non-ECL race is good.

 

a.k.a. Pikel Bouldershoulder

 

I had to Google that, as I didn't recognize the character. It's been a long time since I read any sourcebooks, and I never read many of the novels. I read more Star Trek books than AD&D books.

As for no Cleric or Wizard, Could probably do well with a druid instead of a cleric, but I really want to try a Stromlord of Talos to test the mods I made to domain spells. The Stormlord and the Deep Gnome monk are the only two "must haves" in the party, and I'm building the rest around them.
As for no wizard, if I don't take a wizard, I'm taking a sorcerer. However, since I already have a bard that can do sorcerer-type magic (partially), I'm taking a wizard to use all those scrolls I find. Granted, the bard can use them, but while I'm looking for something interesting, I'm not a masochist. Granted, it's not as bad as trying to do BG2, but not fun either.

As for the halfling and dwarf subraces, I can't really decides, aside from the fact that Ghostwise wouldn't be a good choice if I want to mix-in a rouge level, only a few barbarian levels. I've been known to do Bard11/Sorcerer(X) when I reach HOF, but that won't work here.
There doesn't seem to be any benefit for these builds when choosing either of the first two subraces for either dwarves or halflings.

Finally, I'm considering a half-orc wizard and a tiefling Stormlord, just to complete the oddball party. Aasimar or plain human would make more sense, but this is all about misfits. Heck, the proper thing would be to make the half-orc the cleric and the human the wizard because of racial ability adjustments, but I'm not doing that!

I'll still power-game to a certain extent, with this disadvantaged party.